Air passenger traffic in Nigeria decreased to 203,729 in the month of July compared to 1,194,605 in the same period in 2018.
The figure represents 82.9 percent drop in the number of passengers airlifted among local and international carriers in 2018.
Flights shrunk to just 1,934 also in the month of July, compared to 6,372 in the same period in 2018. The drop represents a 69.6 percent drop.
Out of the 6,372 flights operated into and out of Nigeria in 2018, 1,245 of them were carried out on the international routes.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government reopened the airspace for domestic flight operations on July 8, 2020, after closure of almost four months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down global economies for the most part of 2020.
The Nigerian government had shut the domestic airspace on March 27, 2020, while it closed the airspace against international airlines four days earlier, March 23, 2020, to be precise.
The 203, 729 passenger traffic recorded in the month of July comprised 105,505 inbound and 98,224 outbound passengers.
Documents obtained from the Ministry of Aviation indicated that the 203,729 passengers recorded within the period were mainly from domestic flight operators.
Airlines like Air Peace, Dana Air, and Arik Air ferried more than 70 percent of the total passengers for the month on the domestic scene, while the other 30 percent were shared among Azman Air, Max Air, Ibom Air, Aero Contractors, and Overland Airways.
On the international scene, though, the Federal Government is yet to reopen the airspace for foreign flights, but some evacuation airlifts were carried out within the period among Ethiopian, British Airways, Emirates and Air Peace Airlines and a few others. The flights were both inbound and outbound.
Most of the evacuation flights were carried out at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja.
The statistics indicated further that out of the 1,934 flights carried out in the month of July, there were 830 delays and five flight cancellations within the period.
